Leeches Reveal Biodiversity Treasure in China

Researchers used DNA from leeches' last blood meals to find out what animals live where in China's Ailaoshan Nature Reserve. View in browser

Image credits: WildWoodMan/Shutterstock Leeches Reveal Biodiversity Treasure in China Researchers used DNA from leeches' last blood meals to find out what animals live where in China's Ailaoshan Nature Reserve. Nala Rogers, Staff Writer September 17, 2021                                                                                                                                                                                (Inside Science) -- You can't argue with 30,000 leeches. In the largest study of its kind, researchers used the blood-sucking worms to reveal a marvelous variety of mammals, birds and frogs in China's Ailaoshan Nature Reserve. The findings demonstrate the value of the park and help establish leeches as a conservation surveillance tool. "From a conservation angle, the number of endangered, near-threatened [and] threatened things that they found with this was just awesome," said Michael Tessler, a biologist and leech expert at St. Francis College and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who has collaborated with the research team in the past but was not involved in the new study. "That this method is capable of finding those things I think is very powerful, and I think they showed some really important patterns." A paper describing the findings is available online, although it is not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal. The researchers were inspired by... Read more Copyright 2021 American Institute of Physics. Inside Science syndicates its articles, columns, blogs and videos to news organizations. To initiate syndication, or request permission to republish our content (on a one-time or continuing basis), please contact Inside Science at insidescience@aip.org. News organizations seeking permission to republish Inside Science content must fully credit Inside Science as the original source of the content, include the author byline, and republish the original, unaltered form (excluding content titles, headlines, or sub-headlines). The reprint format can be seen here. Copyright conditions and usage terms are subject to change at any time without consent or any type of prior notice. To unsubscribe from all future mailings from Inside Science please click here. To manage your email subscriptions please click here.

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